Ounces

Today has been a day filled with ghost from the past and I think it was days like this that made me start this blog. At first they were every day, and every day I needed to say something, I need to express something. After a while they died down and I started having these days few and far between, but it seems I've been having them an awful lot lately. So just bare with my for a few days.

Last night my sister started talking about taking a walk, sitting on a park bench and talking to Dad and our step mom of 10 years, Kim. I get that, I totally do because I talk to them sometimes myself. I'm not really sure why because I still have a lot of doubt about a lot of things, but I think I'm just selfish and unwilling to believe the things that logic is telling me. I spent the first 15 years of my life just accepting what people told me. I never thought twice about it, until I met someone while I was baking Christmas cookies at my brother's girlfriend's house, and it changed my life.

He became my best friend, a part of my family, and with out ever really knowing it, he taught me to think for myself. So I spent the next five and a half years not believing, and not because anyone told me not to. But because I sat down, read, and realized to my human, clear thinking mind, it didn't make sense, and it never had. I was okay with it, but my family wasn't. It wasn't something that I voiced often and they never took it. My dad was one of the few people who would actually debate it with me though. It was just something that we did sitting at the kitchen table during the late hours of the week days, or on road trips - we'd debate God. I think that he was ultimately disappointed that I had my issues with God, and I think that's part of the reason I am where I am right now.

My dad died seven months ago, and Kim died two months before that. They're gone, and everyone keeps telling me that they're with God now. "They're with God, Faith. They're happy now." After a while, that's just something you start to take. I accepted it because I knew my dad was disappointed in my lack of belief, and because it was easy. It started to be easy to close my mind off to the fact that my dad, the only parent I ever really had, didn't exist in any form anymore. So I took on God, and I liked it. I still hated (and still do) when people start preaching or shunning me because of my previous (and sometimes present) thoughts. I don't like people to tell me what to think, which could possibly be my main issue with religion in the first place.

I'm pretty sure that right now, I need to keep closing off the logical part of my brain. I'm going to keep going to church when I can, mainly because I think it makes Grammy and Aunt Kathy happy, and a little bit because it makes me happy. It makes me feel connected to my dad again, it makes it easier to let go of regrets. I know that there were a few times that I failed him, and though I know he always would forgive anything I did wrong, I just would like to hear him say it and I want to tell him I forgive him too.

I realized this when I was sitting on my bed Saturday morning after getting out of the shower. I was just staring into space thinking about my life, my past. When my eyes focused I realized I was staring at the memory board we made for his funeral that had a huge picture of him in the middle and space around the edges for people to write little messages. When I focused more I realized I was staring at the note my brother Ollie wrote and it simply said:

"I wouldn't have had it any other way, Dad."

I love my dad, and I miss him everyday. I know he wasn't perfect, and I know I didn't always have the things everyone else did, but that's why I am who I am. That's why I'm not greedy and why I never ask for anything, it's why I'm always trying to make people happy. My dad made mistakes, giant ones, that eventually cost him his life, but he also had so many accomplishments. I can think of six of them right now - three boys, and three girls. Those mistakes and accomplishments, together, formed me, formed my family.

So, no - Ollie, I wouldn't have had it any other way either. I can only hope he's out there somewhere and knows that I appreciate every ounce of his life. Every laugh, every argument, every tear.

Faith